Media providers and/or other entities such as, for example, advertising companies, broadcast networks, etc. are often interested in the viewing, listening, and/or media behavior of audience members and/or the public in general. To monitor this behavior, an audience measurement company may enlist panelists (e.g., persons agreeing to be monitored) to cooperate in an audience measurement study. The media usage and/or exposure habits of these panelists as well as demographic data about the panelists is collected and used to statistically determine the size and demographics of a larger audience of interest.
In recent years, security of online communications has increased in importance due to privacy concerns, financial data concerns, etc. One method of providing security to online transactions is the use of encryption. In particular, encrypted online communication protocols (e.g., hypertext transport secure (HTTPS)) have grown in popularity. Such protocols provide end-to-end encryption to prevent a third party from intercepting and observing the contents of communications.
To monitor encrypted media communications, audience measurement entities often employ tools that interact with media presentation applications that reveal information about the media. For example, an extension may be added to a web browser to gather information about webpages and/or other media and to report the gathered information to a panelist meter executing on the same media presentation device (e.g., computer) as the web browser. Because the extension executes within the browser, the extension has access to the decrypted contents of encrypted media (e.g., media transferred using HTTPS).
The figures are not to scale. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawing(s) and accompanying written description to refer to the same or like parts.